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hpr0650 :: Dumpster Diving

Tips, tricks and precautions for salvaging hardware from dumpsters and dumps

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Hosted by Broam on 2011-01-28 is flagged as Explicit and is released under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.
hardware, recycling, repair. 2.
The show is available on the Internet Archive at: https://archive.org/details/hpr0650

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Duration: 00:18:16

general.

Dumpster Diving

Cheapskate Computing

Broam talks about how to obtain, clean, and rehabilitate computing equipment that others have thrown away, and shares a few stories.


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Comment #1 posted on 2011-02-02 22:34:23 by brother mouse

dived a bit

I found a PC one time; I gave it the hostname "catpee" and it was obvious why they threw it out. :-P I let it sit in the garage for about 6mos and the smell faded enough so I could stand to get near and clean it.

My favorite diving gear, in order of importance:

1. a willingness to leave the dumpster area as clean or cleaner than I found it.

2. One of those "handy grabber" things. I use a 48" Nifty Nabber (froogle search --https://goo.gl/Jlg4i ). I also have a 36" that I prefer for walking picks. The 48" is a little long but perfect for those picks wa-a-a-a-y in the dumpster.

3. A rubbermaid bin in my car stocked with: leather gloves for sharps, latex gloves for stickies. Messy stuff sits in the tub until I can get home and clean it out.

4. air compressor with blower attachment, as you point out. Blow all that dust and crud out.

Comment #2 posted on 2011-02-08 18:06:54 by pokey

bring a flashlight

I'll only dive in computer recycle bins. It's much cleaner that way. I still consider it unsanitary, and treat it that for safety's sake, but its definitely cleaner.

I record all my HPRs on a mic that I salvaged, plugged into a sound card that I salvaged, in a computer that I salvaged, full of salvaged parts. So I can really relate to this episode. Good one, and thanks.

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